


White

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Loneliness, M/M, Solitary Confinement, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 10:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5582377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik finds different ways to cope in his prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White

Everything is too white.

It is probably on purpose. The glare designed to make him feel like he’s in some sort of hospital, to remind him every single moment that this is a _punishment_ and that he _deserves_ this and that he was _wrong_.

Erik considers using the mush they give him to finger-paint the walls but that would be giving them a sign that he’s disturbed by it all. And he won’t do that. No matter what, he won’t do that. He can’t escape – not yet. But he can control himself until the chance presents itself.

(And someone will come, won’t they? Surely nobody can be so angry with him, so angry that they’ll leave him down here forever … some other mutant, someone who understands and approves, they’ll come?)

Thoughts like that are dangerous. He crushes them as best as he can. It is better not to think of anything now. That way, nobody will see anything. Nobody will see fear or pain or loneliness.

He eats the mush. Sometimes, he varies his routine a little by not eating it straight away. It’s a silly thing but it helps. He has control over that. He chooses _when_ to eat, if not _what._

He exercises. All sorts of things, anything he can think of. It passes the time, keeps him fit. A few times, he sees guards watching him through the glass, laughing at him. He treats them as though they are invisible. They might as well be. They’re ants, nothing but ants (he wishes sometimes they would talk to him though. He misses hearing voices. He cannot even hear his own – to speak out-loud would be to show that he misses sound and he won’t. He will not share a single weakness.)

He sleeps. He sleeps a lot. There’s little point in being awake after all. Nothing really to do. And in dreams, he is entirely free, free to walk and run and travel wherever he wishes. He becomes good at dreaming. Good at finding the places he wants to revisit, the experiences he wants to relive. His mother. Some of his travels, the better ones. Mystique, beautiful and blue and powerful. Charles.

He dreams of Charles most often. Charles in the garden of the mansion, sun on his face, looking happy and carefree, almost a miniature sun himself. He beams at Erik, holds out his hands and Erik comes to him and they sit together on the grass. Erik likes that dream. It’s utterly peaceful and that peace sometimes lingers on even after he wakes up to the white walls and the mush.

Other dreams of Charles are less peaceful. Dreams of Charles in his bed; kissing and caressing and whispering lovely things in Erik’s ears. Sometimes Erik thinks he can still hear those whispers when he wakes and they always make him hope for mad, crazy moments – but it’s never real. It’s just his brain playing cruel tricks because it’s starving for contact.

After a while, he starts to regularly hears voices that he knows aren’t real. They don’t exactly talk to him but they ramble vaguely in his head. Sometimes, he recognises them, sometimes he doesn’t – he’s not sure which he likes least. There’s no shutting them up though so he just leaves them to murmur away. _They_ can’t know that he hears them so it’s all right.

Everything is all right as long as _they_ don’t know that he hurts.

That keeps him going, generally. On the worst days when he wants to slam his head against the wall, watch the white turn red and pink with his own blood and brains, he reminds himself over and over that he mustn’t let them see him hurt. He is strong and they are nothing and they must never, ever see him bleed.

He is stronger than them. He is better than them.

He is Magneto. And nothing will ever destroy that.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12dayschristmas


End file.
